U.S. Pat. No. 5,925,217 A for example discloses a through-air drying fabric having a plurality of machine direction oriented warp knuckles formed by warp yarns of the fabric and floating over the weft yarns of the fabric. These warp knuckles form compressed areas in the fibrous web dried on such a fabric with a machine direction orientation. Warp knuckles of directly adjacent warp yarns overlap in a cross-machine direction, but the warp yarns are arranged so that a line connecting the centers of all warp knuckles is straight. Thereby the paper or more particularly the fibrous web receives a uniform pattern with a plurality of strictly diagonally arranged linear compressed areas in the fibrous web. This relatively uniform and strict geometric arrangement is not capable of providing the fibrous web as such with a unique patterning which would make the paper product clearly distinguishable from other products. In addition, this strict uniform and linear patterning gives the fibrous web a relatively stiff appearance. A similar disclosure may also be found in WO 2012/104373 A. In order to disintegrate the strict diagonal structure of the compressed areas, the fabric disclosed in WO 2012/104373 A arranges a weft knuckle between pairs of warp knuckles. However, also this kind of fabric provides a relatively uniform and strict pattern repeat with straight linear rows of compressed areas, however, alternately arranged in both machine and cross-machine direction. Also this pattern is perceived as background pattern not providing the fibrous web with a distinct appearance. Additionally, also this kind of patterning gives the fibrous web a relatively stiff outer appearance which is perceived negative by the consumer.
To cope with these problems, it is common to convert the fibrous web to final products such as hygiene or wiping products by use of embossing and/or printing. It is possible to emboss or print a random pattern which imparts a distinct pattern enabling a distinction of the product from other products as well as give the product a bulky and soft outer appearance.
On the other hand, the converting processes add on the manufacturing costs and, therefore, increase the price of the products. This is particularly disadvantageous when considering products of the lower price segment, such as one ply paper products including only one fibrous web or ply, respectively.
In these kinds of products, it would be highly desirable to impart a pattern to the fibrous web already during the papermaking process so that one may even dispense the embossing and/or printing step to arrive at the final product.